Les Canards Chantants - John Dowland | Now, O Now | Lute Song

Now, O now, I needs must part

Parting though I absent mourn

Absence can no joy impart:

Joy once fled cannot return

While I live I needs must love

Love lives not when Hope is gone

Now at last Despair doth prove

Love divided loveth none

Sad despair doth drive me hence

This despair unkindness sends

If that parting be offence

It is she which then offends

Dear, when I am from thee gone

Gone are all my joys at once

I loved thee and thee alone

In whose love I joyed once

And although your sight I leave

Sight wherein my joys do lie

Till that death do sense bereave

Never shall affection die

Sad despair doth drive me hence, etc

Dear, if I do not return

Love and I shall die together

For my absence never mourn

Whom you might have joyed ever:

Part we must though now I die

Die I do to part with you

Him Despair doth cause to lie

Who both liv'd and dieth true.

      "A thing of beauty is a joy forever." John Keats